Pioneering Gay Shrink Dies

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Dr. Richard Isay has died at 77, the NY Times reports in an obituary today. Dr. Isay had been an advocate of treating homosexuality as normal long before it became the common approach, and he was widely criticized by his peers for that effort. He did not himself come out of the closet until he was 40, married with a family. The obituary includes much praise of the doctor for pioneering a new psychiatric view of homosexuality, arguing that it was not something to be cured in therapy. in 1992, backed by the ACLU, he got the American Psychiatric Association to promise not to discriminate against gay people.

 

The obituary is worth reading for the impact Dr. Isay's orientation had on his family. In 2011, Dr. Isay's wife wrote an opinion piece for the Times on what it was like for her to learn of her husband's homosexuality: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/opinion/sunday/my-gay-husband.html

 

Also, the criticism of the doctor in his earlier days of advocacy has not stilled. The obituary contains one comment dressed as praise, but concluding with the observation that "Dr. Isay could sometimes seem doctrinaire and a bit shrill, irritating to some." That by a professional colleague, who apparently couldn't let the obituary go without one last dig.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/health/richard-isay-fought-illness-tag-for-gays-dies-at-77.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries